Chains
by Rentozu
Summary: Nikki and Paka are two lab experiments looking to escape their past and find a place of acceptance among others. Along the way, they are chased by the lab that created them, and they learn about who they were before they were lab rats. *(I do not own Pokemon)*


_They give us these chains_

_Try to bind us down_

_To keep us from bending_

_Away from their will._

_But we broke those chains_

_And we are free._

_And we will_

_Never_

_Be_

_Bound_

_Again._

* * *

**Nikki**

* * *

Paka's been getting heavier over the past few months. Which is a good sign, of course. It means he's returning to a healthy weight after escaping from _that_ place. Even the mere thought of it makes me want to shudder.

What I'm referring to is a lab, and not the good kind where people try to find the cure for cancer. I'm talking about the kind that takes kids with no parents to protect them, and does horrible things to them. Why kids? Because no one cares if some random street rat goes missing, that's why. If they took an adult, or a kid that has a house to live in and parents to watch them, suspicions would arise. No one regards the dwindling numbers of homeless children as a bad thing. And children also tend to be more obedient than adults. Especially the young children who don't know how to properly rebel.

Paka groaned and his arms started to go limp, slipping from their locked position with my legs. Quickly, I looked for a place to land, and spot a high hilltop not far from us. I adjusted my wings and glided at a steep angle towards the ground. The sacrifice of carrying someone is to have an ungraceful landing.

But perhaps I should explain a bit. I don't have arms. Instead, I have impressive wings similar to a Braviary's. Paka has psychic powers, and tends to get bad headaches when the power gets too strong for him to handle, which is what's happening right now. I think that his powers might have come from an Espurr, but I'm not entirely sure. We got our little "enhancements" from the lab that I mentioned earlier. I don't really remember a time before the lab, but I suppose I must have come from somewhere. The scientists just told me that my parents were both dead.

Paka dropped to the ground just as I was about to land. He held his head and groaned as I flapped into a standing position next to him. I wiggled my wings to drop my backpack off of my shoulder, and Paka grabbed it. He opened up the zipper and grabbed a small container of pills, then popped a few into his mouth. The pills were some painkillers we'd gotten from a pharmacy a while back. They helped Paka with his headaches, but he still needed to take it easy after getting one.

"I'll look for a place to stay for the night, it's almost evening. You stay here, all right?" I told Paka, who nodded silently. I crouched down, and then jumped into the air, propelling myself with a powerful downward sweep of my wings. Sometimes I wish I had arms and hands instead, so that I could use things like doorknobs and pencils. But at the same time, nothing can compare to the freedom that flying offers.

I was about to fly over the town and see if there was a house or a hotel that we could stay at, but something caught my eye. I zoomed in on it with my enhanced vision, and saw that it was a tree fort, probably made by a bunch of kids as a hideout. Nobody seemed to be inside it, so I turned back to tell the good news to Paka. It didn't look like we would have to go into the town after all.

* * *

**Paka**

* * *

I was vaguely aware of Nikki telling me that she was going to be leaving for a while. I just gave her a nod. The air blew across my face as she took flight, blowing some of my hair out of my face.

In case you've never had a psychic headache before, allow me to tell you about it. It is _excruciatingly painful_ beyond all imagination. It's worse than most migraines. The only thing I can do is to wait for it to calm down to a dull throb. Thing is, I can't always tell when a headache is going to happen. Sometimes I can feel a slight pain, which warns me of what's going to happen. Sometimes though, it happens without warning, when I'm off guard. This happened to be one of those times. It was a good thing Nikki noticed while we were flying, or I would have dropped from her like a rock.

It didn't take long for Nikki to return. At least, I thought it didn't take long. I tend to lose track everything when my headaches happen. Either way, it had settled down by the time she came back. I still wasn't well enough to fly with her, but she told me that it wasn't that far away, so we walked.

"It looked big enough and sturdy enough to stay in, so I think we'll be fine," said Nikki, talking about the tree house fort.

"Yeah, I just hope we can find something to eat in the morning, I'm already hungry," I said back to her.

As it turned out, we didn't need to wait until morning. When we reached the tree fort, (Nikki had to fly in through the window since she couldn't climb the ladder.) we found a cooler full of juice boxes, and sandwich ingredients. I ended up having to help Nikki make her sandwich, because of the whole no-hands situation, but she could eat it by herself.

When we were done eating, Nikki soon fell asleep on the floor. I also realized how tired I was, and I hadn't even been the one flying us here. _That headache must have taken a lot out of me…_ I thought as I too, drifted into the land of dreams.

I was so tired in fact, I didn't even notice the small voices outside, or the shadow that came across the doorway.


End file.
